


Rescue by Moonlight

by hibiren



Series: Jay's FFXV Halloween Week 2019 Fics [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Blood, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fae Queen Lunafreya, Fairies, Fear, Full Moon, Gen, Magic, Mild Blood, Nightfae!Noctis, Platonic Relationships, Rescue, Trapped, platonic lunoct w/ background promptis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-04 21:03:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21204077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hibiren/pseuds/hibiren
Summary: [FFXV Halloween Week: Day Three] Noctis gets into trouble while teasing some human faehunters, who capture him and try to take him away from the forest. The hunters certainly aren't expecting the wrath they're about to receive upon their poor souls...





	Rescue by Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of my faeverse fics! Please give them a read if you haven't already, I'm really loving how the worldbuilding is going so far :D
> 
> This is my first time writing anything with Lunafreya so I hope I do her justice! I've been talking on discord a LOT [ and I mean **_A LOT_** ] about Fae Queen Lunafreya so I'm hoping this will be a great introduction to her before bringing her into some other works sometime soon! We call her "Lunafaea" as a running joke, I hope you enjoy that too ;3 basically I took what XV did to Luna [fakjdhfla] and said, SCREW IT, LET'S MAKE HER ALL POWERFUL. LET'S MAKE HER THE FREAKING MOON. More lore coming soon one day if this fic goes over well? :D
> 
> Written while listening to: [Woodkid's "Run Boy Run"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bVTtNHdhg4)
> 
> **Featuring [FFXV Halloween Week](https://twitter.com/FFXVhalloweenwk)'s Prompts**:  
**Theme**: Moon  
**Scenario**: Hunting Supernatural Beings  
**NSFW [made SFW]**: Captivity

The sounds of voices echoing from a path in the forest quickly piqued Noctis’ curiosity. It had to be humans, no one else was this obnoxiously loud past sundown. The voice didn’t sound like that human who lived nearby, Noctis realized as he drew closer. There were two or three of them, waving around beams of light as if they would step on something unpleasant and wanted to avoid that at all costs. It would have been comical, if the faeprince hadn’t caught the tail end of their discussion.

“You really think we’ll find any of them?”

“You know what the book said. They’re like fireflies. You catch fireflies in jars. What difference does a faerie make?”

“Uh… size? What if they’re big?”

“Book says they can’t be bigger than a foot tall. We’ve got reinforced nets and we can fish ‘em right out of the air.”

_I’m right here,_ Noctis wanted to say, _I can hear every word._

Instead, the nightfae decided to have a little bit of fun at the humans’ expense. He’d been getting bored of his patrol anyway. There was no need to signal any of the other fae for this; he’d be done with them in no less than five minutes.

Summoning a subdued flow of energy, Noctis charmed some nightflower vines to life and let them slither like snakes across the path in front of the humans. It was a near-full moon, so he certainly had enough energy to play around. When the humans saw it and were distracted, Noctis dashed across the open space like a moonshadow. Both hunters jumped and the one closest to the vines nearly threw his light at it.

“What the - ?!?!”

“Did you see that?! What was that? A snake??”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, I _hate_ snakes!!”

The two immediately zipped their jackets up tight and stuffed their pants into their (rather clunky-looking) boots, trying to step around and away from the ‘snakes’ in their way. Noctis blurred across the pathway with a ridiculous grin on his face. This was the most entertaining night he’d had in a long while. If only Prompto could have joined him in playing around, then… it would have truly been an unforgettable fun. Of course, Prompto was a nicer fae than he, but there would be a time that Noctis would show him around, show him how to have real fun, how to have adventures unlike any he’d ever dreamed - if only they could both be awake at the same time. Curse the daycycle for needing such maintenance.

_“Watch your step!”_ Noctis yelled, sure to project his voice through the trees. _“It’s dangerous out here at night!”_

“W-Who’s there?!” one asked, flinching, brandishing his light in front of him as if it were some kind of weapon.

_“Me, silly human,”_ Noctis crooned, appearing in a flash of bright stars and baring his fangs to show just how sharp his teeth were, just how intimidating he could be as he swished his cloak outward and spread his wings wide. _“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”_

He’d been expecting an answer, but what he hadn’t been expecting was something heavy and hard coming down on his head as if he’d been squashed by a large, hefty book. It knocked him to the ground, pulled the breath from his lungs, and left him feeling dazed and upset and alarmingly unable to move. He could feel a steady stream of blood from a cut at the top of his forehead, mostly because it trailed into his eyes and left him somewhat blinded.

A gloved hand reached out and snapped him up off the ground, squeezing tight enough to make Noctis let out a pained squeak in protest. Despite Noctis’ struggles and swears and desperate attempts to free himself, the human’s grip was too strong for him to fight in his weakened state. When he tried to fly away or at least get his wings to work a distraction for him, a sharp, stabbing pain struck him through his wings, lancing across his back. It felt like one of his wings was torn and that was _bad._

“Book says we can take these cute little wings off and sell ‘em for a pretty good price… for magic and whatnot. I dunno about you but I wanna make him squirm for freaking us out,” the human that held tight to Noctis said to the other, and Noctis spat black ink onto the gloved fingers that held him. Nothing happened. His magic was waning. It didn’t so much as make the human flinch, as it should have burned him. “Wings or not, he’s gonna pay.”

Noctis squirmed more but to no avail as his captor pinched his wings between two of his large, gloved fingers and began to pull. The pain made Noctis scream, which in turn made the two humans laugh.

_“Let me go! Get off me!”_

Several panicked thoughts flashed through the nightfae’s agony-panicked mind. He knew what would happen if he lost his wings, especially if the humans made it out of the forest with them - there was no hope of getting them back. If he lost his wings he was dead. Left to shrivel into a pile of useless dust without any magic to help himself. It was too late to call for help; he could hardly get words out of his mouth past the anxious gasping that overtook him.

Another harsh pull and Noctis screamed again, hot tears swarming his vision as the pain of his tearing wings nearly made him sick. Just the sensation of that fragile skin tearing was enough to send his gut spinning, his mind into anxious alarm. When the pain subsided just slightly, Noctis felt his head fall forward; he was no longer able to hold himself upright or look his captors in the face. _This is it, isn’t it… I should have minded my own damn business._

Strength left Noctis as he continued to bleed into the human’s clenched hand. Ragged, labored breaths shuddered his entire body as if he were freezing and part of him just wished it would be over quickly so he wouldn’t have to deal with this any longer.

_“UNHAND HIM!”_

Noctis never thought he’d be more relieved to hear that familiar - yet terrifyingly upset - voice falling down from the sky overhead. It was Lunafreya, Fae Queen and Ruler Over the Moon. Bright white streaks of light cast down over the three of them as she made her presence known. It was enough to blind the humans and cause the one holding Noctis to let go and send him falling to the ground. Although the impact of the hard dirt against his injured back hurt, it hurt much less now that he knew he had help. It took all the energy he had in his bleeding, broken body to crawl beneath and hide under an exposed tree root to wait out what Lunafreya was about to do. Best to stay out of sight when she was that angry.

She was as grandiose as ever, of course to make a point to the humans. Perhaps there was something deep within the fae queen that wanted to be seen, wanted to strike fear into any of her enemies whether they were fae or not. All Noctis could see of her was the train of her skirt and her long sleeves billowing in the night wind, whipping her hair free of its braid as she shined threateningly bright, eyes a piercing cold blue stare behind her fallen bangs. She was ready to kill something, and had her two targets standing before her.

_“You will do well not to mess with my Prince, foolish humans,”_ Lunafreya hissed, summoning her trident scepter and jabbing it downward at the two men. As it glowed, stars swirled in galaxies around the trident points and sent the air around her crackling with magical energy. _“So help me, I curse you and anything you touch not under my protection until you’ve redeemed yourselves. Do not mess with us. Am I understood?!”_

As Lunafreya spoke, her form increased in size until she was at least twice that of the humans and Noctis had to bite back a frightened scoff at the sheer terror that washed immediately across their faces. The perfect payback.

“O-Okay! F-Fine! We’ll leave we’re sorry!! We won’t come back! Please don’t hurt us,” one said, and Lunafreya flashed downward to loom threateningly over him.

_“You are hereby banished from this and every forest on this earth. If I see either of you again, you will not live to speak of it.”_

With a defeated noise, both men swallowed and nodded in answer. “Yes, ma’am…”

_“Very good. Now begone.”_

Lunafreya raised her trident above her head and sent the two humans away, likely back where they had come from at the forest’s edge. At least now neither of them had to worry about being attacked again, not for a long while and certainly not by those two. A frustrated sigh left the fae queen as she slowly reverted back to her normal size and flitted over to Noctis, who laid immobile beneath the tree root. He was somewhat thankful he’d had enough energy to stay conscious to watch her fight the humans, but it was starting to take its toll on him.

“Oh, my dear Noctis, how badly did they hurt you?” she asked, a worried frown on her face when she caught sight of the fractured wing and the pulled skin bleeding at his wingjoints.

“I… can’t feel my wings,” Noctis admitted, and when he tried to move them as a result, it just made him spit blood onto the dying leaves below. “I’m… done for, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely not,” Lunafreya hummed, very carefully sitting down on the leaves and tucking her skirt under her enough to act as a sort of pillow to rest the faeprince’s head on. She gently brushed his bloodied hair back and frowned when she saw the first of the worst injuries. With a kiss planted on one fingertip, she brushed it across Noctis’ forehead and the cut vanished along with all the dried blood that had caked against his skin. He sighed thankfully as one cause of pain vanished, and slowly relaxed into her lap just slightly more. “I shall do my best to fix you, love. Can you tell me what happened, while I work?”

“Yeah, I - _ow_ \- ” Noctis flinched and bit down on his lip when Lunafreya touched the splitting, bleeding skin at his wingjoints. After she whispered an apology, the nightfae continued, “I was… okay, I saw them walking around, they said something about hunting fae and I wanted to have a bit of fun with them before sending them away but… they grabbed me and…” The next sentence left him as a frightened whisper, as if finally what had nearly happened was setting in. “...They… tried to pull my wings off.”

With a displeased noise, Lunafreya gently traced her fingertips across the swollen, broken skin at his back and began to work her healing magic into them. Noctis did his best not to flinch or move no matter how badly it stung until the healing took full effect but it was very difficult. His fists clenched weakly but Lunafreya - noting this - began to sing softly to him to help him relax.

When her hands reached the split wing, Noctis closed his eyes tight and inhaled as deeply as he could, now that his chest didn’t feel like it was going to give out on him any moment.

“Noctis, I need you to assist me.”

“...Hm? How?”

“Just focus on something for me. Anything. Do your best to conjure it with your mind. It will help distract you - this may take some time.”

And so Noctis tried to suspend himself in his dreamscape without fully falling asleep; just enough to dull his immediate reactions to the pain he knew was coming. To his left was a full-mooned night sky, in a big vertical stripe across the expanse. Galaxies swirled distantly across the empty space and unnamed planets circled in a dance within them. On his right, a sun rose over a forested field of sunflowers and a gentle breeze drifted through, scattering some of the stars in the night-land as if they were dust.

_“...Noctis?”_

The nightfae blinked and realized he was back in his home, laying on his side with a soft white furred blanket - not his own - draped over him. Lunafreya sat next to him, wearing a gentle smile. Her hand rested over the blankets just barely touching where his shoulder was beneath the fur.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m… alive, so that’s good,” Noctis mused, offering a weary smile. “Thanks for saving me. I know I’m gonna hear an earful about this later but - I’m sorry for causing you trouble. I just… didn’t want the humans to get any closer. I should’ve known they’d be more likely to hurt me, since they were out looking for fae like us.”

Lunafreya nodded and slowly pulled her hand away, leaving the gentle glow of her handprint and thin fingers imprinted against the fur. “Please, my dear prince, do be more careful. You worry me, with your mischievous ways. Hopefully this will serve as a lesson to you, perhaps. I’d also advise that you not try to fly or use your magic for the next halfmoon, you’ll take some time to heal fully. If you try to strain yourself you’ll risk tearing your wings again.”

“Yeah, I… don’t want that.”

The bed felt warm and comfortable, and more so as the minutes passed. The fur over him seeming to emanate the slightest of heat; just enough to warm his cold body. Finally he was starting to succumb to sleep, and Lunafreya traced a touch along Noctis’ bruised jaw to tilt his chin toward her just slightly.

“Sleep well, Noctis,” she said, before pulling her hand away and standing, gathering her skirt around her before floating off toward the doorway, taking her glowing light along with her. “I expect to see you again soon, when you’ve healed. I’ll send your sunfae companion a message to kindly ask that he watch over you during the day. He cares about you very much, it seems. He leaves his energy on everyone he touches.”

“Hm…?” asked the nightfae, not sure if he’d heard everything that Lunafreya was saying, as he started to drift off into dreams.

“Ah, nothing. I shall check on you again sometime soon should you need anything else. One last thing… I should thank you, for distracting those humans away from us. It may not seem like it, but you were very helpful. I’m sorry you were hurt.”

“Mm. No problem, my queen,” Noctis murmured, his words slightly slurring in his tired state, “Making trouble and distracting people is what I do best.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did alright! I threw in some background promptis of course because that's one of my top otp's but I really want to expand the verse I have by adding more of the XV cast to what I've written hence why Lunafreya became such a crucial part of the verse! I want her to have all the power she should have had in the main canon. Let her kick some butt!!


End file.
